Recently, Dr. Jordan Peterson reemerged from the depths of a Benzo addiction. In a publicized interview with his own daughter, he described the downward spiral of his dependency, and becoming “emotionally detached from family”.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this. The mother of a friend of mine relapsed to alcoholism recently. During rehab, where she managed to stay clean for a bit, she described “getting her feelings back”.
This phenomenon I’ve also interacted with myself on a personal basis. I’ve made it a point never to take any mind altering drugs in my life, whether they be legal, illegal, or prescribed by a shrink. I had a longtime girlfriend in my 20’s however, that began to complain to her doctor about anxiety. She was working at a cardio rehab clinic for old folks, and she was afraid an old weak person would have a heart attack on her watch. The thought of this happening made her cry every morning before she went to work. After explaining this irrational fear to the doctor, she was prescribed her a drug called Effexor, or venlafaxine, a selective serotonin/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor.
The effects of this drug were almost immediate. It produced night sweats that were unbelievable. Her clothes were soaked along with her sheets and an odd smell that filled the entire room… a sort of weird combination of body odor and some other entity that I couldn’t quite figure out, as I had never smelled it before on a human. Her sexual drive had diminished considerably, and it became much harder for her to reach orgasm when there was a desire for such.
At her workplace, there was an improvement in her ability to do her job without stress. Her general demeanor though, was more of a flat affect. The drugs had caused a noticeable change in her personality, I did not like this change, it seemed unnatural. She was not particularly intelligent or kind spirited or virtuous, but she did have an emotional response to everyday activities that was enough to facilitate a functional loving relationship. The drugs seemed to take that emotional response away. There were no longer emotional reward or consequences to anything.
I began to research just what this drug was that her doctor (whom for some reason she trusted more than anyone else) had prescribed for her, only to find that cocaine works by a very similar mechanism – that is – limiting the reuptake of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine. It came as no surprise to me, after having read this, that my girlfriend would feel better and less anxious after having taken them. I was concerned however, that the drugs were addictive in the same manner cocaine is. In general, taking this pill instead of learning to cope with the cause of one’s anxiety, just seemed like a really bad idea to me.
It turns out I wasn’t too far off the mark. They are in fact addictive, overprescribed, and in my opinion, much more of a “Gateway Drug”, if there is such a thing, than marijuana ever could have been. There are perverse financial and material incentives to keep them prescribed, and once someone is on them, especially if they are young and impressionable when they start, the odds of them ever getting off them are poor or non-existent.
In earlier writings, I have hailed the virtues of the free market. I’d actually like to backtrack. The free market cannot handle the problem of addiction. For those that I’ve known that have become subject to these vices, all meaningful productivity and relationships disappeared from their lives and they became people that were dependent on government, as no other entity was left for them.
There is a debate about people having the right to their body… this is hogwash. In my earlier days I would have agreed but not anymore. When someone becomes addicted they become a public charge… they become unable to take responsibility for their dependents, for themselves, while the very fabric of human freedom is being responsible enough have a choice. Taxpayers are forced to pay for an extremely inefficient counseling and rehabilitation effort that isn’t known to work all that great. This is not at all the case of free, productive people being held down by the arbitrary authority of the state. This is in every way a case of irresponsible hapless addicts becoming a danger to themselves and those around them, and costing billions to take care of in a humane way.
The libertarian argument is that if drugs were legalized, they wouldn’t be a problem. They would still be a problem. The drug market would be a taxable problem but drugs would be a problem nonetheless, just like alcoholism is a problem.
There is a strong case to be made indeed for just making them not available. No drugs available, no way for idiots to get addicted to them.